Crossing the K-12/College Divide: Practical Tips for Collaboration

Janelle Underhill, Rio Salado College, Tempe, AZ - presentation - see Slide 25 in the PowerPoint presentation for links to the recommended websites provided on the blue handout if you did not receive one at the program

- superintendents and library directors -- need their support, get them involved -- we each make assumptions about others, but all face the same challenges and share the same goals; need some overarching help to get this started

- work with college education students to develop one-on-one or small group tutoring for HS students brought to campus to work on projects -- education students develop an appreciation for information literacy and get a chance to work with students -- K-12 students benefit from college students' insight [perhaps college students need a little research training or development of expectations before working with K-12 students]

- don't forget the role of public librarians: K-12 school students will go to public library once the school library closes, so need to build public librarians into the network

2. Develop a list of activities you could collaborate on to strengthen the teaching of information literacy.

- history events, especially community-based

- career research

- annual state-wide/regional workshop for K-12 librarians - workshops on state digial library system, Google, MySpace - a place where a mix of librarians in one place where they can collaborate and share

Possible Solution: parents - haven't tapped them as a resource for helping to integrate library/research skills into the classroom -- get parents to start asking questions about why their children aren't getting skills needed for college

Barrier: faculty don't understand the explosion of information -- college professors haven't been in high school for a long time and have high expectations for students

Possible Solution: collaborate to hold "teach the teacher" or "what your students don't know about the library/research" for K-12 and college faculty -- start a dialog with faculty using common or teacher terms instead of librarian/information literacy terms to find common ground ("research skills" or "critical thinking skills" instead of "information literacy")

Possible Solution: college libraries open doors to high school teachers so they can see what academic libraries have (books, technology)

Possible Solution: need to get college professors into high schools so teachers understand students aren't prepared